A Graveyard in Avignon

Occasionally I’d like to comment on something of a literary nature that has caught my fancy. Recently I read a review of a biography of Victorian notable John Stuart Mill, perhaps best knownfor his resounding defense of civil and social liberty entitled “ On Liberty.” The biography is Richard Reeves’ John Stuart Mill: Victorian Firebrand and the reviewer was Adam Gopnik in The New Yorker. Published in the UK, Reeves’ book is not yet available here yet but given what Gopnik says of it, I hope it soon will be. Mill himself is a fascinating figure, as is his wife, Harriet Stuart Mill, a formidable feminist thinker and writer in her own right. Married in 1849, they enjoyed only a few years of happiness before she died in 1854. Shortly after their union, John Stuart Mill published an article called “The Enfranchisement of Women,” which came out under his name but was written primarily by Harriet, his beloved intellectual equal.
The Mills are buried together in the cemetary of St. Veran on the outskirts of Avignon, where they were living when Harriet died. Many years ago when I was there with my husband, I determined to find her grave. It was a hot September Sunday and we had enjoyed too much good French wine the previous night, but undeterred, we set off from the center of the town, map in hand. Neither of us is an expert map reader and a somewhat quarrelsome few hours passed before we reached the cemetery, inconveniently located on the fringes of the city. And in time, we even found the grave, a white marble tomb surrounded by greenery and lit by the late afternoon sun. I thought of it when I read the following quotation from Mill in Gopnik’s piece: Claiming that few would really want “the lure of immortality” if they thought about it, he writes that the “mere cessation of existence is no evil to any one: the idea is only formidable through the illusion of imagination which makes one conceive oneself as if one were alive and feeling oneself dead. What is odious in death is not death itself, but the act of dying, and its lugubrious accompaniments: all of which must be equally undergone by the believer in immortality. Nor can I perceive that the skeptic loses by his skepticism any real and valuable consolation except one; the hope of reunion with those dear to him who have ended their earthly life before him. That loss, indeed, is neither to be denied or extenuated.” That last sentence, albeit understated, is rich with felt emotion.
Thanks to the internet and